My concern is doing this in senior year. Along the lines of what @Orcus2020 wrote, junior year allows one to tend to any slack from the away experience.
Doing it in 12th means everything needs to be ‘good to go’ with the college apps and your full hs record. That’s risky to count on, when OP hasn’t yet learned much, if anything, about college admissions. Or, for a tippy top. (Throw in the MIT blogs.)
It feels like some here focus on the excitement and that’s hard to argue with. Of course it has living challenges and adjustments, but that doesn’t stop lots and lots of kids, year in and year out. The fact that a semester is longer than a summer, by a few weeks, shouldn’t remove summer as a viable option. I get the impression this interest is primarily for the ancillary opportunities- the country, the travel.
But because OP also asked about tippy top colleges, imo, we have to admit the impact of trying to cram 3 remaining years of hs into 2. And without much started. OP isn’t super accelerated in his coursework now and unless I’m missing something, band is the only EC-- but treated as a course, by his hs.
Add, apparently OP hasn’t looked at costs yet. He’s assuming a job now will yield enough to pay for the program and transpo, and may be surprised.
At this point, I think we’re repeating ourselves. OP needs to get off the dime and start researching what’s out there, projecting what he can earn, and taking a more serious look at whether Ivies or MIT are feasible, too. Remember how we discourage most freshmen from setting their sights on those, before they have any hs record.